Shark attack

A man has used his surfboard to fend off a shark that bit him on his calf off an Australian beach two days after a fatal attack on the Great Barrier Reef. The 43-year-old surfer was bitten yesterday at Shelly Beach off Ballina in New South Wales state. Ballina Shire Mayor David Wright said the surfer described the shark as about 1.5m long. Wright told Sydney’s 2GB radio that the man came ashore, wrapped his leg and went to the hospital for treatment of a 20cm wound. On Monday, a shark killed a man in an island harbour in the Whitsunday Islands where two tourists were mauled in September.